Prayers Needed

We got some possible bad news this past week concerning our second pregnancy. Below are the details. This news might radically change our outlook. We will know more in January.

THURSDAY
We just returned home (Thursday morning) from our mid-wife appointment and our first sonogram. The mid-wife appointment went good. Things looked good and sounded good. We went down the hall to a separate office for the sono. After waiting for some time, we were finally called in. The sonographer did all the usual measurements and then said, "I'm going to go call a doctor." The doctor came in and did some checking around. He finally told us what he was seeing: our baby's stomach is not where it should be. It's up in the chest cavity where the left lung should be developing. "Left" is important because it is not as severe as if this were occuring on the right side. The problem is called Congential Diaphragmatic Hernia. You can learn more about it here.

This is not good news. At best the baby will only need surgery after the baby is born. The long-term effects are all across the board. At worst, there is more associated with this Hernia such as Downs or other kind of retardation that could mean immediate loss of life upon birth.

Laura and I were pretty devestated. The doctor suggested that we get an Amnio right away. We didn't even have time to think before we were ushered into a
genetic counselor's office. We were given so much attention and everyone was incredibly nice and gentle. The genetic counselor and genetic OBGYN sat us down
and talked with us a good while about the Amnio and why we should do it. We were overwhelmed when they said that miscarriages are possible with the Amnio. We
asked for time to think about it. They were more than gracious about it and were glad that we made that decision.

We were told that one of the leading Pediatric Surgeons for this condition operates at Columbia Presbyterian on 168th street in Manhattan. We will start seeing him soon along with a high-risk pregnancy doctor up there.

We went back and talked with our mid-wife who was gentle and sweet: just what we needed. We will see her once more at the end of December in which she will hand over our file so that we can now see the doctors at Columbia.

We are holding it together but there have been moments already and I'm sure that the flood gates will open sometime today. We are blessed to live here as the
doctor said that people all over the world fly here to have the particular surgery from this doctor. Please pray for this baby. Please pray for us.


FRIDAY
We had another appointment today. This time it was with a Pediatric Cardiologist. He looked at the baby via sono and said the heart looked good. All four chambers are pumping correctly and it looks like the heart is developing normally. The doctor was nice but was a bit more honest in what he saw in the sono. Just like the left lung is being compromised due to the stomach being in the wrong place, the right lung is compromised as well because the heart has been pushed over into the right area. He said that having the hernia this early is not good because the lungs have had no chance to really develop. While he could see lung tissue on the right side just above the heart he noted that it was not developing. He was glad to hear that we would be at Columbia. He knows Dr. Stolar, the Pediatric Surgeon whom we will soon see, and says he is one of the best.

Nothing in this pregnancy is going as planned and Laura and I are attempting to wrap our minds around all the changes. We have made another change that has helped us in dealing with this. We have found out that the baby is a boy and we have named him Ira Lester Hays. Ira and Lester are the names of our grandfathers who exhibited incredible strength in times of adversity.

Pray for Baby Ira.